Text guidelines is a campaign-level feature that allows you to refine your brand’s message for assets made exclusively with text customisation. These guidelines help you not only to meet business and brand requirements, but also to control the output of assets created with Google AI automatically when text customisation is 'ON'.
This article explains how to turn on and use text guidelines for Performance Max campaigns and search campaigns with AI Max enabled.
On this page
- Before you begin
- Understand term exclusions and messaging restrictions
- Add text guidelines for Performance Max campaigns
- Add text guidelines for search campaigns
Before you begin
You must have text customisation set to 'ON' to use text guidelines.
- Learn how to turn on text customisation for search campaigns.
- Learn how to turn on text customisation for Performance Max campaigns.
Understand term exclusions and messaging restrictions
Text guidelines has 2 options to refine your Google-optimised text assets: Term exclusions and messaging restrictions. When you add text guidelines to your campaign, it’s important to remember that your term exclusions and messaging restrictions will also apply to existing Google-optimised text assets. This means that your existing Google-optimised text assets will stop serving and be marked as removed if they don’t adhere with the new text guidelines.
Term exclusions
You can use this feature to add exact words or phrases that you want excluded from all generated text assets. Term exclusions aren't case sensitive, and you can add up to 25 term exclusions per campaign to refine your ad.
Examples
You can exclude single words or phrases from your text assets:
- Cheap
- Unlimited
- Low cost
- Cheapest in Paris
- A better choice than competitor
- Term exclusions are language-specific. For example, if you exclude the English word 'Cheap' and your ads are in Japanese, term exclusions won't prevent the Japanese equivalent from appearing in your ads.
- Term exclusions can’t prevent assets with prices from being generated. For example, '$' as a term exclusion won’t exclude assets like 'Shoes for less than $50' from being generated. Instead, you should use the messaging restriction 'Don’t generate assets with prices'.
Messaging restrictions
This feature lets you specify what concepts, associations or styles to avoid in your text assets. You can define the tone of voice to adhere to. Alternatively, you can also define a tone of voice to avoid in your assets. You can add up to 40 restrictions per campaign to refine your ads.
Avoid restrictions that require different instructions for different asset types, for example, 'Use title case for headlines and sentence case for descriptions'. Instead, ensure that you either specify one case for all assets or don’t make any specifications.
Add an example within your guidelines to achieve the best results. For example, instead of just saying, 'Avoid mention of any prices', you can say, 'Avoid mention of any prices, e.g. $45/night or $4,567'.
- Adding inefficient or counterintuitive guidelines may cause removal of a large number of good text customisation assets and lead to a drop in campaign performance.
- Messaging restrictions also apply to assets not in the language of the restriction. For example, if you write a messaging restriction in English but your ad has assets in German and Dutch, the restriction will still apply to the German and Dutch assets.
Examples of effective messaging restrictions
| Example | Explanation of effectiveness |
| 'Don’t imply our products are discounted.' | This restriction is clear and defined, which will ensure terms like discount, cheap, bargain and phrases associated with 'discounted' don’t appear in your asset. |
| 'My brand name should be spelled as “CompanyName or Companyname”' | This is a clear, direct guideline to ensure that your brand name is spelled accurately and stylised how your company expects. |
| 'Never mention any city names in my ads.' | This is a clear restriction that prevents all city names from populating. |
| 'Our brand tone clear, straightforward' | Descriptions of your brand’s tone will help to generate a copy that works for you. Be direct and descriptive. |
| 'If promoting a discount, always include "T&C apply”' | This is a clear direction. If there is an asset that includes promotions or discounts, unless it includes the 'T&C apply' the asset won't serve. |
| 'Don't mention our brand name, 'CompanyName' or our competitor, 'CompetitorName'.' | When referring to brands, it’s important to provide an example of what to avoid. You don’t need to list numerous names, but giving an example is helpful. |
Examples of ineffective messaging restrictions
| Example | Explanation of ineffectiveness |
| 'My ads should bring joy' | Joy is a vague description that is subjective. Provide a more direct phrasing of how you want the text to be written. |
| 'When targeting audiences in the US ages 30–45, say …' | Currently, messaging restrictions does not support this. Create a different ad group or a campaign to create specific messaging for target audiences. |
| 'My ads should deliver 1000% ROI' | While our system is designed to drive ROI for each advertiser, Google can't guarantee specific ROI from text guidelines. |
| 'Avoid implying that our products are cheap. Never include mentions of any brands, other than “CompanyName”. My brand name should be spelled as “CompanyName" or "Companyname". Never mention any city names in my ads.' | Break up the requirements into separate guidelines. |
| 'If possible, talk about the ingredients of our chocolates.' | Currently, this guideline can’t be supported. The model can only take hard requirements. |
| 'Don't include any pricing information.' | While this guideline is fine, it may be too broad. If you don’t intend for the model to remove all information about pricing, including promotions, prices and savings, consider making this guideline more concrete. As an example, consider 'Do not mention specific prices'. |
| 'Don’t target purely informational queries.' | This type of guidance isn’t supported by text guidelines, as it relates to audience or keyword targeting rather than asset generation. |
| '25% off $60' or 'Buy one get one free for items over $100' | The guideline '25% off $60' is ineffective as it is unclear if this phrase is required in all ad copy, should be prohibited entirely, or if only specific parts of the string should be avoided. |
| 'Mention free delivery whenever possible' or 'If possible, talk about...' | Guidelines should be direct requirements. If a concept is a 'must-have' for your brand, phrase it as a direct instruction. |
Add text guidelines for Performance Max campaigns
You can use text guidelines on new and existing campaigns.
New campaigns
- Go to Campaigns in the Campaigns menu
and select New campaign.
- Select Performance Max as your campaign type.
- Go to Brand guidelines in the 'Asset group' step and select More options.
- If your campaign doesn’t have brand guidelines enabled already, you have 2 options. You can either access text guidelines via the asset optimisation step, outlined below, or you can upgrade your brand guidelines experience to the campaign level. Follow the steps listed in the Upgrade existing campaigns with brand guidelines to gain access, or contact your Google representative for additional guidance.
- Scroll down to the 'Text guidelines' panel. Enter any term exclusions and messaging restrictions that you would like to apply to your campaign.
and select New campaign.Text guidelines can also be found in 'Asset optimisation' inside the 'Asset group' step.
- Go to Campaigns in the Campaigns menu
- Select Performance Max as your campaign type.
- Go to 'Asset group' and select Asset optimisation. In the 'Text' field, select the Customisation box. Below, select Add text guidelines.
Existing campaigns
- Go to Settings in the Campaigns menu
- Locate 'Campaign settings' in the panel and select Brand guidelines. 'Text guidelines' is located under 'Brand identity'.
-
If your campaign does not have brand guidelines enabled already, please follow the steps listed in the Upgrade existing campaigns with brand guidelines to gain access. You may contact your Google representative for additional guidance.
-
Add text guidelines for search campaigns
To use text guidelines in search campaigns, you must be opted in to the 'Text customisation' feature in AI Max. You can enable text guidelines for new and existing AI Max campaigns.
New campaigns
- Go to the 'Create' button
and select Campaign.
- Create a new search campaign.
- When you reach the 'AI Max' page, toggle to opt in to AI Max settings.
- Below the opt-in toggle, find the 'Asset optimisation' panel. The 'Text customisation' setting will be enabled by default. Below that, select Add text guidelines.
- Enter any term exclusions and messaging restrictions that you would like to apply to your campaign.
and select Campaign.Existing campaigns
- Go to Settings in the Campaigns menu
- Select AI Max in the section menu.
- Toggle to opt in to AI Max settings.
- Below the opt-in toggle, find the 'Asset optimisation' panel. The 'Text customisation' setting will be enabled by default. Below that, select Add text guidelines.
- Enter any term exclusions and messaging restrictions that you would like to apply to your campaign.
